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We present dAuth, an approach to device authentication in private cellular networks which refactors the responsibilities of authentication to enable multiple small private cellular networks to federate together to provide a more reliable and resilient service than could be achieved on their own. dAuth is designed to be backwards compatible with off-the-shelf 4G and 5G cellular devices and can be incrementally deployed today. It uses cryptographic secret sharing and a division of concerns between sensitive data stored with backup networks and non-sensitive public directory data to securely scale authentication across multiple redundant nodes operating among different and untrusted organizations. Specifically, it allows a collection of pre-configured backup networks to authenticate users on behalf of their home network while the home network is unavailable. We evaluate dAuth’s performance with production equipment from an active federated community network, finding that it is able to work with existing systems. We follow this with an evaluation using a simulated 5G RAN and find that it performs comparably to a standalone cloud-based 5G core at low load, and outperforms a centralized core at high load due to its innate load-sharing properties. 

As computer science has grown in importance throughout the world, there’s been a similarly growing drive to apply foundational computer science to address core societal issues. For networking researchers, this effort has largely focused on bringing the benefits of Internet access to marginalized populations. In this work, we reflect on more than a decade of our own work deploying such research into the world in all of rural, urban, developed, and developing regions. We share key lessons and related stories that have influenced they way we do this type of work. We conclude with a call to other researchers to add their own stories to share back to the wider networking research community.